


Aside

by eye_of_a_cat



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Adultery, Angst, F/M, Prophecy, what is the opposite of hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 16:21:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14958006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eye_of_a_cat/pseuds/eye_of_a_cat
Summary: Somewhat bleak Delenn/Lennier ficlet, set in Season 4-ish.





	Aside

**Author's Note:**

> Some of my early fic, originally posted on Livejournal in 2004. 
> 
> This exists in the same universe as my fic 'Elements of Consolation', although I don't want to call it a sequel because it is depressing. (A possible sequel, maybe.) It takes place somewhere after S4 'Atonement'.

* * *

  
_Look not in my eyes, for fear_  
_They mirror true the sight I see_  
 _And there you find your face too clear_  
 _And love it and be lost like me._  
 _One the long night through must lie_  
 _Spent in star-defeated sighs_  
 _But why should you as well as I_  
 _Perish? Gaze not in my eyes._  


* * *

  
This was what happened: when she closed her eyes, the universe no longer had three dimensions. Everything became compressed into the flat surface of a picture, taking her with it, crushing her between layers, and she knew - knew like she knew the sound of her own breath, the pace of her own footsteps - that when she opened her eyes it would be real. She would exist in a world where depth and distance ceased to be, and past and future with them, so that all time was now and all things were here. She knew this.  
  
It never was, of course. It never was more than an illusion, the result of an exhausted mind trying to make sense out of the day's questions, only an illusion. She knew this. It was a ridiculous thing to fear, an irrational thing. She longed to hear John tell her this, John who would never think to doubt such a fundamental thing as the ground beneath his feet, but what could she answer if he asked why it terrified her so? _If I have no place to stand because all places are one, if my actions never happened because all time and all things are now, then who am I?_ And that he would not know.  
  
In the chrysalis, it had been this way - space was not real, time was not real, and she was caught between Minbari and alien, what she had been and what she would be. She had not thought of Valen but of the teachers who came before him, and of how they spent days in deep meditation to reach this state. The prophecy they gave made no mention of time or place, and was difficult to understand even for trained scholars, but to be in that holy space where such things no longer mattered was wisdom in itself. This had been a comfort to her, and when she was no longer capable of thought, there was still the knowledge she was fulfilling prophecy and the sound of Lennier's prayers in the darkness. But now, unable to sleep, unable to meditate, unable to do anything except lie here and wish it all to be gone, she felt neither holy nor wise nor anything else.  
  
Lennier was asleep when she called for him, blinking in the light of the vidscreen and stumbling over his words, but soon he was there anyway - just as he always had been there, just as he always would be there. She touched his face, his neck, felt each curve and point of his headbone under her palms, until she knew he was real. He closed his eyes beneath her hands, and suddenly she was angry - he would never know this doubt, this fear. And so she kissed him, hard, to take away that certainty, and felt him hesitate and then wrap his arms around her and pull her close, his hands on her back and his lips warm beneath her own. She broke away from him and held his trembling hand on her chest, and asked "Who am I?"  
  
He could say, _You are a murderer_ , knowing now what she had done. He could say _You are a freak, a corruption of everything Minbari._ He could say _You are the remnant of discarded prophecy, useless, nothing._ All this he knew, and every word of it was true, and the thought of hearing him say so was more than she could bear, and she pressed her face into his neck before she could see the answer in his eyes. She was crying, maybe - or she was, she must have been, and he kissed the tears from her face and stroked her hair and told her that he would not leave her.  
  
He said this a hundred times, a thousand times, in the past and in the future and in this moment where she stood holding him as if he was the only thing left in the universe. He said this until she was strong again, and she trailed kisses down his neck until his voice shook, grazed his skin with her teeth so that he gasped with pain or pleasure and there were no more words.  
  
She pulled him down with her, the silk of his robes brushing against her face before she tore them aside to feel his bare skin under her arms. His hand cradled the back of her head against the floor - he was careful, so careful, so afraid of hurting her. There were words again, a rich whisper in the darkness, although she could not tell if he spoke them aloud or even whether they were his: _Why? Why this?_  
  
"You know who I am," she answered, her hands gripping his shoulders. "You know me."  
  
He hesitated - there was still time for them to stop, for this not to happen. "Your partner," he said, his hands still and shaking on her body. "He should know you."  
  
John, who had sent the Vorlons away for her because their question was no temptation to him. John, who did not know what it was like to live like this between time and space. John, who would never know what she had done or what she could do, who would never forgive her if he did. "I do not want him to know who I am," she said. "Do you understand? I do not want him to know."  
  
He understood, of course, because he had always known her, and she tugged the last of his clothing away and asked him again and again, _Who am I? Who am I?_ , pulling him close and pushing him away and biting and kissing and scratching all at once, until he grabbed her wrists, his hands covering the scars from the Inquisitor's manacles, and said "You are Delenn. You are all that you are."  
  
This was not an answer, or if it was she did not want to understand it, but it was enough. When he released her wrists she reached for him to press every part of her body against his, and pulled him inside her with a single movement that made him cry out against her throat. In this moment that was not a moment, she had never been without him, had never not known what it was to feel him move as though he were part of her. She was Minbari again, whole again, and the wanting and pleasure and joy were all one, and nothing else mattered.  
  
During her transformation, she knew that she was safe as long as he was still with her, praying, waiting. He was what she needed and what she needed to be, and the universe would never allow him to be so close to her if she was beyond redemption. She knew this now in the touch of his hands on her body, hands that would never be covered in the blood of genocide, hands that prayed when she could not. He brushed sweat-soaked strands of hair from her face and asked "Who am I?", and it did not even seem strange that he should ask that question, or that he should ask it of her.  
  
"You are everything," she said without needing to think, and only realised from what she saw reflected in his eyes that she had spoken it aloud. He held her in his arms so tightly that there was no space between them, and whispered words too quiet for her to hear, over and over again until there were no more words, and there was no more thought, and nothing was real except him.  
  
It was always this way, and it always would be this way. He would be there when she needed him, as he had been so many times before. They would not speak of this, but she did not need to - only a look, only the touch of her hand on his face, and he would know what she asked. She no longer made him raise his eyes to look at her before leaving, and she did not know whether this was better.  
  
And sometimes it had not happened, because how could something that existed outside space and time exist at all? It had not happened, and she had not heard the words he whispered, and he had seen nothing in her eyes, and she could return to John and be glad that together they had sent away the gods. And sometimes it was holy, as everything that existed in this sacred place was holy, and all else was less beside it.  
  
She lay warm in his arms, her face nestled into the curl of his shoulder, falling asleep to the soft chant of his prayers.  
  
And sometimes, it was no more than this.

**Author's Note:**

> The poem at the beginning is by A. E. Housman.


End file.
